Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2019 | Page 5

The Lead
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Professor Doug Nelson was honored in May during
the faculty advisor's dinner as part of the EcoCAR
Mobility Challenge Year 1 event, for 25 years of service
to Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions. The
award was presented by General Motors and organizers
of the event. On hand were several former HEVT team
leads as well as Ed Nelson, the Associate Dean and Chief
of Staff of the College of Engineering.
Current and former John R. Jones Faculty Fellows got
together for dinner May 1. From left, current fellow
Associate Professor Pablo Tarazaga, Azim Eskandar-
ian, Nicholas and Rebecca Des Champs Professor and
Department Head, current fellow Professor Christo-
pher Williams, John R. Jones III, and current fellows
Professor Rui Qiao, and Professor Lei Zuo.
Associate Professors Amrinder Nain and Bahareh
Behkam covered half the registration fees for their
Thermal Fluids Classes to take part in Relay for Life
April 19. Jess Gannon, a student in Nain's class, was
Fundraising Co-Executive for this year's event which
raised more than $473,000 university-wide. Since 2007,
Virginia Tech's Relay for Life event has raised more
than $6 million for the American Cancer Society.
A senior design team had the opportunity to present
their work on water sanitation and distribution design
solution to the Women and Gender in Development
Conference this spring. The team included: Smriti
Kandel, Connor Moulton, Rajah Singhal, Isabella
Isacco, Bill Glynn, Alex Wu, Andrew Douglass,
Brianna Friedman, and David Moore.
Virginia Tech recognized members of the university
staff in May and the mechanical engineering team took
home a well-earned second place trophy in a team
competition, led by team captain, Cathy Hill. From
left, Kimberly Clark, Amanda McCoy, Diana Israel,
Hill, and Miriam Snyder.